When moving from an English-speaking, First World country to another English-speaking First World country, culture shock is subtle and often food related. I’ve already blogged about the Australian obsession with beetroot and my reaction to it. Now let’s talk about pickles, donuts and marshmallows. Australian food FAILS.
I love pickles. they are awesome. Crunchy dill pickles. On sandwiches*, on the side along with a sandwich, on burgers, just to snack on in the middle of the day, or even to electrocute for the fun of seeing how they glow**. The pickle is a wondrous food. I love the flavour, the consistency, everything. The best are the big, homemade pickles swimming in brine in ginormous jars at delis in the US. Mmmmm, pickles! Yeah, not so much here. For some reason known only to the misguided Australian pickle makers, they appear to *cook* their pickles. I’m not kidding. They’re soft, often rubbery,cooked & humiliated cucumbers often swimming in a mixture that is far from the delicious dill pickle brine of my childhood. I have to be careful about which brands I buy (because, as bad as they are, I cannot have a burger without at least something resembling pickle on it) lest I get one that tastes truly foul. They seem to have an abundance of flavour varieties, as well … like, bread and butter pickles, etc. Um, wut? DILL, people! DILL is the only kind of pickle! And they are called “pickles,” in everyday language, not “gherkins,” or whatever. Oh, and only the cucumbers are called pickles … you can’t call relish or other “pickled” items “pickles.” Sigh.
Moving on to donuts … I should preface this with the fact that I’ve never been a big donut connoisseur. I mean, I like donuts and I’ll eat them if they’re around but I’ve never been the type to eat a lot of them on a regular basis or even to think of buying them when there are other choices for a sweet desserty item available. Having said that, compared to American donuts, Australian donuts taste like ass. Ok, maybe not that bad … but they aren’t good either. They’re dry, the wrong texture overall, often missing flavour and a certain … something. I can’t put my finger on it. I’ll eat them occasionally but I prefer to think of them as mediocre cakes as opposed to real donuts. Recently, Krispy Kreme has made it to Australia sparking a phenomenon. Reportedly, there are lines around the block to get these things, people in Perth beg friends from over east*** to bring them Krispy Kreme donuts when they visit. Now, I have never had Krispy Kreme donuts, so I can’t speak from experience but I’ll say one or both of the following things are happening here: 1) Krispy Kreme put crack in their donuts and/or 2) Australians are getting a taste of donuts made the American way and are HOOKED.
Moving on, let’s talk about marshmallows. Marshmallows are, quite possibly, the most non food item human beings have ever invented and willingly eat (aside from McDonalds burgers and Little Debbie cakes, of course). Seriously, who thought of jet puffing sugar and eating it? I don’t know but I think I’d kiss them if I met them. I used to love marshmallows. In my hot chocolate, roasted over the camp fire, roasted and sandwiched between graham crackers and chocolate …. Then I moved here. They have no idea what a proper marshmallow are. The ones of my youth were big, fluffy, melt in your mouth kind of things. They had just the right amount of powdered sugar dusted on them to keep them from sticking together and to make them perfectly delicious, they roasted beautifully, they made me happy. The ones I can find here are shriveled, miniature, overly sugared sad little things. Often they’re flavoured, too. Flavoured and coloured marshmallows? YUCK!
I am well aware of the possibility that some of these things taste so good in the US because they are likely pumped full of artificial flavours and additives that I normally would shun. You know what, though? I don’t care. I still lust after a good pickle and a proper marshmallow. A decent donut would be nice every now and again, too.
* Only occasionally and only certain kinds of sandwiches, of course.
** The Nerdy older brother of a friend of mine once did this to impress us at a sleepover (we were 13, he was 17). And, boy, was I impressed! It was awesome! Plus, well, I might have already had a bit of a crush on him. What can I say? I have a thing for nerds. 🙂
*** The franchise hasn’t made it here yet.
Dude, bread and butter pickles are the only pickles I’ll eat (USian ones, anyway; for all I know, there they could be made with real bread and butter).
And I’m totally curious about the donuts; here, as you likely know, we have two kinds: yeast donuts (like Krispy Kremes, the light and fluffy kind) and cake/old fashioned kind (the ones that come in Little Debbie and Hostess boxes). Are Aussie donuts just the cake kind, or a bad version of the cake kind?
And marshmallows: woman, how are you surviving in a land without proper marshmallows? I’d think what with your outback and campfires and barbees and rough living far from indoor plumbing (cuz that’s totes what Australia is like, right?) they’d be all over the bliss that is a properly roasted marshmallow.
Maybe your new career can be contributing to Australian cultural decay and American colonialization importing Real Food.
Bread and butter pickles are foul. Fullstop.
I had only been reminded of the two kinds of donuts yesterday. I actually know next to nothing about donuts, tbh. Like I said, I was never a huge donut person. BUT, now that I think about it, I suspect the failed Aussie donuts are a bad version of the cake kind. They’re just dry and weird … and the fillings in the filled kind are just not right.
Re: marshmallows: I KNOW! Fucking hell, I miss marshmallows. Everytime a cafe puts one on the side of my hot chocolate or Bug’s babycino, I feel like crying.
Oh, and there is already an American Foods place based in Melbourne. I haven’t ordered from there yet as they have not had the stock I really crave at the same time that I have had the money to think about mail ordering luxury items like that. Besides, it’s easy to stop myself from buying unhealthy, unnecessary food when the procuring of such food requires an effort like ordering. 🙂
PS You forgot the part about how we don’t have cars, we all ride Kangaroos. And we all carry big knives, wear khaki shorts and say “CRIKEY” a lot. 🙂
Damnit, my cleverly placed strikethroughs seem not to have made it into the comment. Making that last sentence make no sense. That wouldn’t have happened in a land with proper marshmallows!!!
LOL good post 🙂
I’ve never had a real pickle, I hate the ones we have here anyway, so I doubt I’d even try a real one given the opportunity.
I’ve never had any other donut than an aussie one. I dont eat them that often anyway, but I am partial to the cinnamin sugar ones, as soon as they’ve been made!!! Would love to taste a Krispy Kreme or whatever other type of American Donuts there are, but then my ass wouldn’t like that at all.
Marshmallows? There are other kinds of marshmallows??? Thats news to me. All I know are those packets of pink and white ones (hate the ones with the other colours) that taste pretty good melted. Had a date with a boyfriend once, we sat out the back of his house with a candle roasting marshmallows!!!
Bring some over for Australian culture to try!!! Like how we have English shops that sell specific English stuff. Their chocolate is soooo much better.
I like the cinnamon sugar ones, too … they’re just not as good as I know a donut can be, yk?
I’m working on doing a http://www.usafoods.com.au order soon. I may have some real pickles and marshmallows for taste testing in the near future …
Hmmm I’ve never had what I thought was a cooked/soggy pickle – I like the Polish ones that you can get pretty easily in Australia…. but now I’m wondering if this version is actually what you think of as cooked. Seem pretty crunchy and yummy to me, floating in salty vinegary sweetish goodness. Is there some other level of pickle I’m missing?
Donuts – Brisbane went mad for Krispy Kreme as well when we first got them, but died down pretty quickly. Def different between those and “Donut King” Aussie style ones. I like the Krispy Kreme style better. There was another recent Aussie chain called Dreamy Donuts which were same style as KK, but IMO better because they used real chocolate instead of frosting.
Marshmellows – not really an expert, but agree the flavoured ones are gross. I only get the giant vanilla ones when I need them.
You could try making your own pickles. People say that the vinegar ones are easy to make. Here’s a website I found… the info is the same as in my books, though the comic sans makes it looks less accurate 😉
http://www.pickyourown.org/pickles_easy.htm
I have tried to make the fermented ones. They died, but that may have been because I neglected them. Do you know if the ones you like are the brine ones or the ones made with vinegar?
Oh, Kim. Me? Make things? From, like, scratch? Surely you jest! 🙂 That would take, you know, effort and stuff. I dunno if I’m up for it. 🙂
BTW, I have no idea about the which kind of pickle question. I hadn’t realised there were two kinds? I just bought dill pickles in the US and they tasted good. They were the ones you could get on Subway sandwiches, etc, too. I only just realized that there are yeast vs cake donuts ffs! I’m clueless! 🙂
Whatever. You like Tupperware and vacuums now – isn’t home canning next?
Oy!
Just because I get excited about DYSON vacuums (the brand is important here, not just any vacuum!) and free Tupperware (only the BPA free stuff and never for the *shudder* microwave) does not mean I’ve gone all Donna Reed/Martha Stewart! I hardly use the vacuum as often as I should and I am a shit cook.
The Dreamy Donuts are pretty good; one opened down at Rocky City and was the first Australian chain that had something that came close to proper glazed.
My parents recently came back from a trip to the US via eastern states and brought Krispy Kremes, so me and the missus descended on them like a horde of locusts. There is something different about a properly American-style donut…